Freak camp, p.27
Freak Camp, page 27
She counted to twenty so they wouldn’t be seen together and followed him out.
Chapter Twelve
Sessions with the Director quickly became one of the most predictable and least secure parts of Tobias’s life.
Every Wednesday he walked into the Director’s office and looked down from the man’s cold, thoughtful gaze. Every Wednesday, they worked to make him an obedient monster. Mistakes were always punished, and Tobias always failed.
But that was where the predictability ended. Sessions could take any shape, from punishments for his mistakes to recitations of hunting lore and how to incapacitate other monsters, to Tobias sitting—absolutely silent, absolutely still—in a corner of the office while the Director read reports or signed papers at his desk. Not even the pain was consistent, though whippings and beatings were common. Sometimes the Director punished him just because he was a monster and that was what he deserved.
Ultimately, the only thing that Tobias could rely on was that sessions would take place on Wednesdays and that he wouldn’t be able to rely on anything. Behavior that had been complimented or ignored one day could have him strung up in the interrogation room on another. Some Wednesdays nothing truly bad happened, and those left him just as shaken, just as terrified.
Only the Director was constant. He had taken a personal interest, and he took great pains to reinforce how grateful Tobias should be that a busy man, the Director of the ASC, a real human being, was interested in his education. He was always there, explaining why Tobias had failed this week; listening, crop in hand, while Tobias fumbled his way through an unfamiliar Latin exorcism; he filled out forms, silently, as Tobias kept his eyes toward the carpet while staying aware, every second, of the Director’s hands.
Tobias became utterly convinced that the Director knew everything. He knew what Tobias ate, who he had blown during the week, and how well he slept. He knew when Crusher made a face behind his back, and he knew if Tobias so much as breathed wrong in his presence.
Part of that, of course, was the cameras placed everywhere in the Director’s office, hidden behind reflective surfaces and in the dark wood paneling. But part of it was just who the Director was.
After two months of training, the Director began assigning Tobias to wait on him at dinner whenever he stayed over at the camp on a day that wasn’t Wednesday.
“You should be grateful that I am allowing you the opportunity to be instructed outside of the usual sessions,” he told Tobias. “Perhaps with these additional hours, you will learn more quickly how to stop being a useless freak.”
Tobias was grateful for the extra time with the Director. He was grateful for anything that would stop the pain.
During the second week of dinners with the Director, Tobias knelt at the side of the long conference table, face angled toward the Director’s feet while his eyes watched for any sign or direction. The Director sat at the head of the table eating messily, a second, empty place setting beside him.
Tobias had learned early on that he was not the one sitting at that second place. Not that he really would have expected to eat with the Director, but the first time he had made even tentative movements toward that second chair, Karl had knocked him to the ground and beaten him until there wasn’t an inch of his back that wasn’t black and blue the next day.
That first dinner had been almost as bad as a Wednesday session. But after he learned what was expected, for once the perfection the Director demanded was possible. As long as he knelt silently, responded instantly to the smallest indication of an order, kept the Director’s water glass full, he was generally safe.
It wouldn’t have been bad at all, except for the hunger. They had put the camp on half-rations again, something about negative behavior. Two rock-hard pieces of bread and one bowl of watery soup for the last two days left him feeling hollowed out and faint, like his body was consuming everything inside him.
Worst of all, when the Director was done with his meal—for a painstakingly deliberate, precise man, he ate like a monster, scraps everywhere, bits of food scattered across the napkin he tucked fastidiously into the top of his shirt—he would dump everything left into the garbage bag Tobias brought him. Every time, Tobias tried not to flinch to see juicy, pristine pieces of meat, potato, and vegetables that he couldn’t name—but which scented the air with flavors he could just barely imagine—disappear into a black plastic bag.
Tonight the Director glanced at him in between bites. It made Tobias’s mouth dry with fear, but he didn’t move.
“Hungry?” the Director asked.
Tobias froze. There was no good answer to that. But that didn’t mean he could lie. The Director would know. “Yes, sir.”
The Director smiled, and another piece of meat fell off his fork and onto the table beside his plate. “The scraps from the children’s dinner,” he murmured. Then he deliberately brushed the meat off the table and onto the floor. “If you are hungry, eat.”
Cautiously, sensing the trick but unsure how to avoid it, Tobias reached forward. He shouldn’t be doing this, he knew it, but he could not look at that scrap, hear the invitation, and ignore it.
When his fingers were over the meat, the Director kicked him in the head.
Tobias fell away, pretending to be hit harder than he was, even though the Director probably knew to the ounce of pressure how hard he had actually kicked. Tobias curled up to protect his head and kept watching the Director, waiting for the next blow, but the Director didn’t look angry. “Eat it properly,” he said, “for what you are.”
Tobias understood what he meant immediately. Some deep part inside him was terrified at how easy it was to understand. But that was not the part of him that kept him alive. It’s true, you are, he thought. Just do it.
He rolled back to his knees, leaned forward, and picked the meat off the floor with his teeth. When he glanced up, the Director was smiling. He deliberately pushed another piece of food off the table.
“Good boy,” he said. “Smart boy.”
That Wednesday, the Director had Crusher punish Tobias because he had not thanked him for the meal.
The Director’s sessions generally lasted two hours, but even that wasn’t certain. One session only took enough time for Tobias to recite a Latin exorcism—he knew he had done it right because the demon chained in the Director’s interrogation room had writhed, flowed out of its host’s mouth, and vanished through the drain—while another session had gone past midnight, and Crusher had hosed him down in the interrogation room instead of Tobias trying to make it to the showers.
Every Wednesday, Tobias learned how he had failed to live up to the Director’s expectations, studied how they could work together to make Tobias a less useless monster, and which punishments would best achieve that goal. Sometimes lessons came before pain, sometimes after, sometimes during, and the lessons ranged from general knowledge of supernatural vulnerabilities to knife work.
Tobias absorbed the lessons quickly. His memory had always been good, and now it was a survival skill. He couldn’t hesitate, he couldn’t be distracted. He had to correctly interpret every single cue the Director gave him and perform the task swiftly and without error, or he would receive one of the Director’s punishments, which were unlike any interrogation he’d endured before.
If Tobias was lucky, the Director would give him the instructions, step by step, and let him ask questions. Other times, he would simply tell Tobias to repeat what he did three Wednesdays ago. Mistakes or hesitations were punished. The Director showed him a picture of a sigil once for exactly ten seconds, then told him to reproduce it in chalk on the floor. He watched Tobias fumble over the details, then had him repeat each piece until he got it right, this time as Crusher applied hot coals to the back of his calves.
The next week, Tobias drew it perfectly the first time. Then he was given another task.
After three months of Wednesdays, when Tobias walked in after hearing the Director’s curt “Enter,” he saw another man sitting at the table across from the Director. The man had a beer and the remains of a good meal in front of him—Tobias felt his stomach twist a little, but breakfast had been edible, and soon enough he wouldn’t want anything in his stomach anyway—while the Director drank his iced tea.
Tobias stepped to his usual position at the side of the door. He didn’t know if this was a test or if their session would be delayed, but it was best to behave as though it were a test. If it wasn’t yet, the Director could make it one at any time.
The Director might drink alcohol when he was home, but Tobias never saw him drink anything but tea or water. The Director believed that imbibing any kind of influence while working with monsters was tantamount to walking in naked, lying on your back, and baring your neck. If a guard failed a Breathalyzer test at the beginning of his shift, he was immediately terminated.
The guest at the table looked Tobias over and snorted. He was a large man, his suit pristine, and his watch and rings flashed gold. “So this is the monster? So well trained you could snap and he’d do anything you wanted?”
The Director smiled. Tobias saw the expression in his peripheral vision, but he kept his eyes on the Director’s hands. As the Director had explained, he was often too busy to waste time speaking to filth like Tobias when a gesture could suffice. Tobias saw the two-fingered twitch, and he knelt gracefully.
Tobias had wondered distantly how the man had the balls to sneer at the Director; even guards who called him a teetotalling prude were careful to say it behind his back (so far behind his back that they wouldn’t even say it in front of Tobias anymore, afraid he might spill something during an interrogation that would get them a private session of their own)—but now the man’s head snapped to Tobias, and then he looked back at the Director.
“Did you tell him to do that?”
“I did. With some work, 89UI6703 has become reliable in several ways.”
“Make him… make him do something else.”
Tobias saw the come here flick, but not coupled with the slight raise that would mean get up first, so he crawled. He crawled on his hands and knees and kept his head down until he was about two feet away from the Director and then stopped, sitting back on his heels. That was as close as he could come toward a real without further permission.
He didn’t look at the stranger’s face, but he could hear the amazement and something more in his voice with his next words. Tobias let his eyes flicker sideways to where Crusher stood, one hand holding a cutting whip, the other clenched at his side. Crusher was, predictably, hard, and he had the familiar brutal lust in his eyes.
Maybe I can get a sandwich out of him later, Tobias thought idly, before returning his eyes to the Director’s hand.
“How are you doing that? When you said you were training the freaks to be useful, I thought you were either unhinged or bullshitting us, Jonah, but that…that was something. My wife’s dog doesn’t obey like that, and she’s taken it to more schools than a Ph.D dropout.”
“He’s a freak, Senator,” the Director answered dryly. “Much as I hate to admit it, he’s quite a bit smarter than a dog. I use gestures when I don’t want to bother vocalizing basic instructions. Granted, this one has taken to the training rather better than most, but just kneeling and crawling is not that impressive. He can do quite a bit more than that, can’t he, Mr. Sloan?”
Crusher started to attention and nodded. “Yes, sir. Pre—the freak’s…good at a lot of things, sir.”
“What—” The senator put down his beer. “What kinds of things?”
Of all the men in the room, only the Director was completely calm, at ease. Tobias couldn’t stop his heart rate from picking up. He doubted the senator cared about the history of wendigos in North America.
The Director considered, eyes steady on him, before they flickered to Crusher, moved to Tobias, and then back to the senator. “By all reports, he’s quite skilled with his mouth. Would you like to see for yourself, Senator?”
“His… mouth? You mean…?” The senator leaned back, wiping his greasy fingers on the napkin on his lap.
“Quite so,” the Director said. “Mr. Sloan can corroborate.”
“Yeah,” Crusher said. “He’s…yeah. I…yeah. Sir.”
“Would you be interested, Senator?” The Director lifted the pitcher and poured himself another glass.
The man stared.
“Sir,” Crusher said, stepping forward. “If Pr—if the freak’s sucking him off, can I—”
“No, Mr. Sloan.” The Director’s tone made Tobias wince, grateful that it wasn’t directed toward him. “No, you may not.”
“But, sir—”
The Director turned in his chair to look directly at the guard. “You will control yourself and do your job, Mr. Sloan, or you will leave this room, do you understand?”
The guard retreated to the wall. “Yes, sir.”
“Well.” The senator coughed. Tobias could just see his fingers nervously twitching over his knees. “If you’re offering a, a demonstration—I’d better accept it myself, just so I know you aren’t blowing smoke—or, y’know what I mean.”
The Director gave a short, clipped laugh without humor. “Yes, I do.” He jerked his head at Tobias and made another gesture.
Tobias did as he was told. It was easier than usual, since the man never released his death grip on the arms of his chair and couldn’t seem to do anything but make sharp, high-pitched whines.
Afterward, as Tobias slid back the required two feet, the senator wheezed, “Holy shit.”
“I take it he performed well?” The Director sipped his tea.
“He, uh, you could say that.”
“You can help me, then, with your opinion. Did he perform well enough that I should waive the usual punishment for touching a real human without asking for permission?”
Tobias froze, unable to breathe, to feel anything beneath the pounding in his ears. How could he have been so stupid? There was always a test, always more under the Director’s commands, and he should have fucking known better than to assume that it would be all right just because he was clearly not the only one the Director was training today.
Touching a real without explicit permission or orders, even when they had said yes to the blowjob, even when they clearly wanted it, or were touching him, was equivalent to hitting a guard. Monsters routinely lost limbs or disappeared into Special Research for even implying that they might fight back.
It took all his self-control not to panic, not to throw himself on his stomach and beg and apologize, not to run and hope that Crusher accidentally killed him. Because this too was a test, and Crusher would never kill him, would never step that far out of line, unless the Director said he could.
And begging wouldn’t help. It never had helped unless that was what the Director had told him to do. Then, sometimes, if he did it well enough, if he repeated enough of what the Director had told him about how worthless he was, about how much he deserved the pain, if he created new ways to say that he was sorry, then the Director would stop the pain because Tobias understood his lessons.
But he had to truly understand. He couldn’t just say the words. The Director knew the difference.
“He…he had to ask permission?” the senator asked.
“Of course. He’s just a freak. You could have made him beg for the privilege, or told him exactly what he should do with his tongue.”
The senator took a hard breath. “Maybe…maybe next time?”
The Director smiled. “Yes, next time. I’m still waiting for your opinion on the punishment.”
“I think he was good enough that this time… this time…”
“This time only,” the Director said smoothly. “That sounds reasonable. But a bit too merciful. Would you mind if I altered that a bit, disciplined him lightly?”
The senator huffed a shaky laugh. “Well, you’re the boss here. You sure seem to know what you’re doing.”
“Thank you.” The Director looked at Tobias. “Tonight you will stay on your knees in the corner, remain silent unless I speak to you, as though you are bound and gagged. If you move, if you make any noise, you will be restrained and I will do what is necessary to educate you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Director nodded and turned back to the senator.
“The next time you want to threaten the ASC budget, Senator, I want you to remember two things. One,” he gestured at Tobias, “the good work we do here confining, controlling, and training supernaturals to useful tasks. And two,” he pointed toward the ceiling, “that I have video of you with your cock down a monster’s throat.”
Every corner in Freak Camp had its own video camera. Tobias knew that the ones in the Director’s offices were strictly private.
Stupid man, even if he is a real, he thought as the senator gaped at the Director. Fighting only gets you hurt.
Jake turned south at Tucson, finally getting the sun out of his eyes, easing the dull ache in his head. He’d been supposed to leave Roger’s that morning, but last night he’d gone into Las Cruces to, for lack of a better excuse, blow off steam. He hadn’t made it back until close to noon, and Roger had bitched him out again about how he’d be no use to Tobias if he smashed up his car and himself on the side of the highway. That was also why days ago Roger had locked up his own liquor and confiscated Jake’s hunting duffel, after the last disastrous attempt at a solo hunt nearly got Jake chewed up by the tiniest werewolf pup he’d ever seen.
Jake knew Roger was right. He was extremely fucked up, and two weeks at Roger’s hadn’t much helped him find his footing. None of that was Roger’s fault. He knew how to kick Jake’s ass better than anyone (well not as good as—but Jake wasn’t going there).
Twenty minutes later down the highway, he took the exit for Sahuarita. At a gas station, he asked for directions for Iglesia de Gracia y Fe. He stood for a few extra minutes in front of the cooler section, wondering how Alejandra Rodriguez would react to him showing up with a six-pack—then shook himself and turned back to the Eldorado.
